By Benny Rogers/ TVCC Sports Information
Kansas gets a double dose of TVCC basketball today.
Both the Lady Cardinals and Cardinals will be in action today at the NJCAA national tournaments. The Lady Cardinals get their first taste of action at the Bicentennial Center in Salina, going against Western Nebraska at 2 p.m. The Cardinals take to the floor in the nightcap in Hutchinson, playing Northeastern at 8:30 p.m.
The No. 1-seeded Lady Cardinals (32-1) will face a Western Nebraska team that rallied from a 15-point deficit in the final 3:24 in the opening game of the tournament Monday to score a 63-60 win against State Fair. Western Nebraska, the No. 17 seed, is 31-4 on the year.
Today’s game will be the 70th Lady Cardinal national tournament game. They are 53-16 in the event, having won nine titles, including the last two. The Lady Cardinals have played in the last three title games.
Elena Lovato, in her second full season as head coach (she was also interim head coach the last 11 games of the 2009-10 season). She has been to the national tournament each season she has been a head coach — three and TVCC and one at Grayson County.
In Monday’s other games in the first round, it was: Northwest Florida State 102, Denmark Tech 55; Blinn 82, Baton Rouge 75; Salt Lake 73, Lake Region State 63; ASA 66, New Mexico 56; and Butler 69, Southwest Mississippi 31.
The winner of today’s Lady Cardinal-Western Nebraska game advances to the quarterfinals Thursday at 1 pm. to face the South Georgia Tech-Northwest Florida State winner.
Making their first appearance at the national tournament since 1999, the Cardinals came up clutch down the stretch Monday to score a 68-65 win against Pratt. The win improved the Cardinals to 28-6.
Next up for the 12th-seed Cardinals is Northeastern, the No. 5 seed. The Colorado-based school is 31-3.
Octavius Ellis, Dedrick Basile and Aldonis Foote scored 12 points each to lead the Cardinals. Malcolm Riley had 10, Dilepso Blanco 8, Patrick Ingram 6, Clarence Williams 4 and Kevin Jordan 4.
The TVCC-Northeastern winner advances to the quarterfinals Thursday at 2 p.m. to face the South Georgia Tech-Harcum winner.
All Lady Cardinal and Cardinal tournament games will be available for viewing online at www.njcaatv.ihigh.com. In fact, all tournament games will be webcast. Also, for audio only, you can hear the games at www.KSAL.com.
It’s 47 and cloudy in Salina this morning. Today’s high is expected to be 62. There is also a wind advisory until 9 tonight with winds possibly gusting as high as 50 MPH.
Send all your positive vibes and thoughts the Lady Cardinals’ and Cardinals’ way today.